Pushing and tug gets my dog jacked!

[Alec]

My dog has probably what you would consider a high level of prey instinct. My problem is that I will push and play tug with her, generally mix in some heeling and other obedience exercises, but when I try to take her into the house afterwards she will still be on edge and want to mess with cat, or go out in the back yard and dig, etc. Do I need to just play more tug? I generally stop when she seems to be on the verge of losing interest so I'm hesitant to keep the game going. So far I have gone back out for more tug, gave her a bully stick to lay down and chew on, and simply bribed her onto her bed with treats in hopes that she will relax (while she is lying down I will generally massage her). Any other time, she is relaxed in the house. Does anyone have any other suggestions? Maybe I just need to get her out for more general exercise but finding this amount of time every day is tough (I spend around an hour everyday at this point). I was walking her, pushing, and playing tug in the morning before going to work but have since stopped so that she isn’t wound up before I leave. Conceptually, it would seem like more tug or fetch would be the answer but I don’t want to overdue it....

[Valerie]

or questions...

I'd like to hear some advice on this as well. And Eka is my slow to push dog. I'm not sure if she is high drive or not because when she is after something we don't want her to have she seems to have a lot of drive, but she is a soft pusher.

Anyway, sometimes after 20-30 min, based on the sample routines from Neil's dvds, Eka is energized and not relaxed. I try to get something for her to chew afterwords like a rawhide or peanut butter in a kong or bone. That helps sometimes, and lately at meals I've just been keeping her on her lead which is on a tie-out in the back yard but is long enough to come through the door. It seems she calms down when she realizes she is confined. Maybe she needs more confinement throughout the day than I am giving her.

I did go out and do a bunch more fetching and fetch-tug one night, probably about another 30-40 min, but I don't always have an hour to spend. Sure more exercise would do it, I'm sure! But my windows of time to spend with her don't always align with her high energy times during the day.

[Lee Charles Kelley]

I'm sensing a bit of a misconception here, which is that pushing = drive. What pushing does is removes some of the emotional blocks causing, among other things, social resistance. So in Eka's case, her hesitancy isn't related to whether or not she's a high-drive dog, but to how she was mistreated by her previous owners, and how, as a result, she's still resistant to "sharing" her predatory emotions with you.

Dogs have a solo mood and a group mood. Pushing increases the dog's ability to go into group mood.

As for dogs not settling down after doing pushing and playing tug, or being more energized about playing with the cat, it would be helpful to see videos of how you're doing the pushing, and how you relate to the dog once you come indoors. Also, if the dog is used to playing indoors, that could be a factor. It would also explain why Eka seems to need the crate in order to calm down.

When I come home with a couple of dogs who are still wound up, I give them a bone or bully stick. They usually settle after that.

I hope this helps,

LCK
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[Alec]

I think you're right about playing inside (see another post I have on here). I have been focusing on keeping things calm inside recently. I am also trying to keep longer lasting and interesting chew toys in the house. For example, a hollowed out bone with frozen soft food keeps her attention for several minutes and allows her to calm down (she can rip through a bully stick in a couple minutes). When I'm in the house, I generally ignore her or just the usual "hey" and some massage.

As for the pushing, I think it would look like Neil in his video (up on hind legs with me pushing back) but only a video would let me/us know for sure (I’m going to try to get some on here). Also, I have been trying to get my wife to spend a little time playing tug when she gets home (generally several hours before me) so that some of that pent up energy is not stored until the end of the day which I think is helping some.

Thanks for the help!

[Valerie]

Oh no! All or most of any mistreatment would have been us. We've had her since she was 9 weeks old and now she's 11 months. (Barkley our foster has since gone to another foster family since I realized I needed to train my own dog first and with other life stuff going on it was too much.) I assume before us that she was just with her mama and her litter, though I can't be sure as we got her from a local shelter.

And not that we were angels with her, it was hard not to react strongly to puppy bites that hurt and the destruction of misdirected chewing along with lack of sleep from nightly potty breaks. And looking back we should have done more crating for longer, and I've played inside with her, AND I didn't find NDT until many months later.

Hopefully she'll forgive me and the pushing will undo the rough spots. She is actually pushing a little more and more all the time. It's not consistent improvement from meal to meal so I get frustrated on the days when she gets picky about the food and/or doesn't push as much as the previous meal.

So with pushing, it is not an indicator of drive per se, but a conduit for creating group mood and the strength of the push can indicate how open the dog is to going into group mood with you and giving you their energy? Am I getting the hang of it?

Ok so no more playing inside.... ugh. And would being allowed on the furniture and the bed contribute to that? Sometimes it seems to be the way to get her to use up energy - playing inside, or maybe I'm just ready to be inside myself. And it sounds like when I give her a rawhide afterwords to calm down that was a good idea. I guess I just need to be more consistent myself.

Sorry to go on and on, so one last thing... she has a high energy time of day around 5-8pm (not that whole time but it's in that timeframe) or so but that is a critical time with my boys - dinner, post-dinner, bedtime, etc. etc. so I don't necessarily have time to do the dinner pushing routine with her until after they are in bed and by that time she's wound down is ready to snooze and then I take her outside and have to get her going again. I think I'm just working against her natural cycle and then I spend a lot of time keeping her out of stuff and trying to get her to settle down again afterwords.

[Alec]

Just throwing this out there (i.e., I don't really know the answer), but is it just a coincidence that she shows increased energy when there are a lot of things going on in the house or are all of these events causing her increased energy? If so, hopefully you will get to a point with the techniques that she will be able to handle everything until you can go outside with her or maybe you can play a little tug beforehand? I'm just throwing out suggestions.

On the pushing for food; cutting back on the amount I give each time early on increased the amount of pushing that she was willing to do. Also, at times I have scooted back really fast when the dog is coming towards me (as opposed to just walking backwards) this seems to get her to come a little harder. Finally, I like to mix in a decent amount of heeling (walking, running, changing directions) in between pushing to try to keep it interesting, and to keep her moving all the time.

[Chris]

About a year ago I was able to spend an afternoon with a guy who would be as close to NDT as we get here in NZ (sadly I can't train with him due to jobs and distance). When I saw him Ty was always hyper inside, chasing the cats as they came and went, he'd do tricks to get attention, whine and yap.

I got told inside is for calm and either crate or on the mat for him and stick with it.

Well I stuck with it and wow, cats can come and go without to much worry, I give him a Kong with a treat in and by the times he's chewed on that I look down and he's sound asleep, what a beautiful sight it is too.

So these days all play is outside (just wish I'd done it when he was little) and calm inside and it really only took about a month for him to get the idea and now he settles very quickly.

[BrownieNJoyce]

Originally Posted by Lee Charles Kelley

What pushing does is remove some of the emotional blocks causing, among other things, social resistance...Dogs have a solo mood and a group mood. Pushing increases the dog's ability to go into group mood.
www.LeeCharlesKelley.com
“Changing the World, One Dog at a Time”

Lee's response (above) to someone else's post is relevant to my current questions. First, here's what I've been doing lately. When it was still pretty dark early in the morning or at the end of the day for our first and last walk of the day, Brownie didn't get energized very often, but would weave all over, often be at the extent of the leash with moderate tension on the leash, and not be very aware of me. After practicing pushing during our back yard training/meal times, Brownie's pushes got pretty consistent and strong. So I started bringing his food on our walks and started doing pushing on these walks. We eventually had some successes with redirection when he would start to get energized. It's getting lighter out and, in general, there are more squirrels out. The first few times we encountered squirrels it took awhile before he would show a break in his focus so I could redirect him to push but it worked! This is still true and, also, I often do 2-5 pushes before continuing on since otherwise he is right back at what seems like fully energized.

FYI- my husband often does his afternoon walk and doesn't use NDT yet. He uses a retractable leash. I can elaborate on this if needed to answer my questions.

1st question: is it the force behind each push (based on how much he feels safe to give me) that determines whether his energy resolves or is it that he has such a "backlog" that even very strong pushes don't bring him back to a relaxed state?

2nd question: He seems today to be less responsive to my bids for pushing (after stopping and watching him closely while he's focusing on the object of prey, when I see a break in his focus, I make a squirrely sound and tug once on leash). Does it make sense that I should do backyard push training again so we get practice under less distracting conditions? Seems like this might strengthen his response overall.

3rd question: He often stands at the French doors in our home, especially since spring is coming, and watches the yard. There's rarely any activity out there and he has never gotten energized in the house. However, I'm wondering, could this be adding to his tension and building up energy that then has to be resolved when we go out? He's very calm in the house although often pops up and follows me around whenever I change room location until evening when my husband and I are both hanging out in the living room and it's obvious he's not going to get to go out again until just before bedtime.

Thanks for any and all replies and hope Neil and/or Lee have time to comment.

[Alec]

Originally Posted by BrownieNJoyce

1st question: is it the force behind each push (based on how much he feels safe to give me) that determines whether his energy resolves or is it that he has such a "backlog" that even very strong pushes don't bring him back to a relaxed state?

2nd question: He seems today to be less responsive to my bids for pushing (after stopping and watching him closely while he's focusing on the object of prey, when I see a break in his focus, I make a squirrely sound and tug once on leash). Does it make sense that I should do backyard push training again so we get practice under less distracting conditions? Seems like this might strengthen his response overall.

3rd question: He often stands at the French doors in our home, especially since spring is coming, and watches the yard. There's rarely any activity out there and he has never gotten energized in the house. However, I'm wondering, could this be adding to his tension and building up energy that then has to be resolved when we go out? He's very calm in the house although often pops up and follows me around whenever I change room location until evening when my husband and I are both hanging out in the living room and it's obvious he's not going to get to go out again until just before bedtime.

Not totally sure if the following is correct but it may help:

Re 1: I would like to hear a response to this question as well; however, I feel like I get more energy resolved with a good game of tug or tug then run while carrying the toy rather than just pushing.

Re 2: You probably could use a little more work in the backyard but I would get the dog hungrier. The more distracting (energized) the situation, the hungrier.

Re 3: My guess is that he is getting more energized by this. My dog does the same thing but it is generally to people/dog watch. She will respond with a bark which I believe is a method for releasing energy/tension. Now if only I could get her to bark on command!

Good luck.

[BrownieNJoyce]

Originally Posted by Alec

Not totally sure if the following is correct but it may help:

Re 1: I would like to hear a response to this question as well; however, I feel like I get more energy resolved with a good game of tug or tug then run while carrying the toy rather than just pushing.

Thanks for responding, Alec. I long for the day when I can play tug with Brownie. We're not making any visible progress in that area. It seems like the urge to play was trained way out of him by the time I got him. He doesn't go after a ball and won't even bite on a toy that has a treat inside it, he just licks at it. (except once with a sock that had a dried chicken strip in it--I could touch the sock but not really pull and it didn't work the next time--he just ran off with it and tore up the sock.) He goes for marrow bones but won't tug on them with a rope through it. Hard for him to get a good hold on them and he won't bite on the rope. So, I am trying to become more relaxed and playful myself. I may do some videotaping and arrange for some one-on-one help from Neil.

Originally Posted by Alec

Re 2: You probably could use a little more work in the backyard but I would get the dog hungrier. The more distracting (energized) the situation, the hungrier.

I thought about the hunger thing last night so I fed him less for supper and did work in the yard today at beginning and end of walk and once just doing pushing in the yard without a walk. I backed way off on the strength of push today since he seemed to be giving me less initially and would back down if I pushed as hard as I could, say, a week ago. Not sure what's going on although the weather has been creepy the last few days. BIG winds for 3 days and occasional rain or sleet. So I'll keep in mind the hunger factor.

Originally Posted by Alec

Re 3: My guess is that he is getting more energized by this. My dog does the same thing but it is generally to people/dog watch. She will respond with a bark which I believe is a method for releasing energy/tension. Now if only I could get her to bark on command!

Wow. Barking on command. Can't see that in Brownie's future. That'd be a miracle too. He doesn't bark...ever. In the nearly 3 months we've had him he's never barked for any reason. He's easily startled and will scamper away at a sudden noise but doesn't bark. He's calm in the house, so I'm grateful for that. He doesn't appear to be getting worked up by looking out the window but it seems possible that it's not helping matters. Today he went for a squirrel and I could barely keep hold on him. I couldn't get his attention so eventually I sat down on the ground still holding the leash of course, and just waited. I was sooo frustrated and let myself be frustrated. He soon came over to me and I massaged him until he was calmer and then we continued. He was still pulling but no more squirrel sightings thankfully.

Thanks to whomever has patience to read my long posts. This has been really challenging for me lately and it helps to post about it and consider advice from others. I'll also go back and read what Neil wrote about his dog Nola, the DVD star and how she didn't tug either when he started with her. Empathy is always encouraging.